Although construction has begun with the goal of providing 122,000 hectares of irrigation throughout the year in the Terai districts of Bara, Rautahat, Sarlahi, Mahottari, and Dhanusha, the pace of the project has been slow.
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A new contract has been called for seven months after the contract for the construction of the Sunkoshi-Marine Diversion Multipurpose Project, which was started to provide irrigation facilities for twelve months in five districts of the Terai, was terminated. An international bidding (ICB) has been called for after giving 30 days.
Nepali construction entrepreneurs can take up contracts up to five billion rupees individually. According to the public procurement regulations, Nepali companies can work in a JV with foreign companies for contracts worth more than five billion rupees. Since the contract for this project is worth more than five billion rupees, the ICB contract has been called for accordingly.
Earlier, the contract for the construction of the Sunkoshi dam was won by Raman-Patel JV. Patel is an Indian construction company. The work was being done by Raman Construction. However, the project had decided to terminate the contract on 25 Kartik, citing lack of progress in the work and the lack of work on the structures including the dam and power house. After that, the construction company had approached the court.
Patel-Raman JV had filed a writ petition in the Supreme Court on 9 Mangshar against the project's decision, naming Kulman Ghising, the then Minister of Energy, Water Resources and Irrigation, the Ministry, the Department of Water Resources and Irrigation, the project and the consultant as defendants. On 10 Mangshar, a bench of Supreme Court Justice Tek Prasad Dhungana had issued a short-term interim order not to implement the decision to terminate the contract and confiscate the bank guarantee.
Dhungana's bench had issued a show-cause order and called both parties for discussion for the interim order. Accordingly, both parties were called for discussion on 26 Magh. The Supreme Court had quashed the interim order issued in favor of the construction entrepreneur on 10 January. The Supreme Court had cleared the way for the forfeiture of the bail by quashing the interim order issued in favor of the construction entrepreneur.
A bench of Justices Hari Prasad Phuyal and Nityanand Pandey had ordered on 10 January that the interim order issued earlier will not be continued. Patel-Raman JV will have to recover Rs 2.4 billion as performance security and Rs 1.2 billion as advance payment. Of this, the performance security amount has not yet been recovered. Only Rs 1.2 billion as advance payment has been recovered. Now, the Public Procurement Monitoring Office has publicly issued a notice and blacklisted the company for three years. Now, it will not be allowed to take new contracts for three years. It will be allowed to work on old contracts.
Patel-Raman JV had taken the contract for the construction of the dam on the Sunkoshi River in Magh 2079 for Rs 14.759 billion to be completed in 4 years and 7 months. Although the work was to be completed by Bhadra 2084, 60 percent of the contract time had expired, and the progress could not be cut to 11 percent. The project claims that the contract was terminated when progress did not increase despite repeated requests to complete the work quickly.
The construction businessmen, on the other hand, had been claiming that the amount for the work was not paid on time, that there was a problem in transporting construction materials due to the flood damage on the BP Highway, that the flood washed away construction materials and that they had caused damage to the work. After the construction of the dam, which is about 30 meters high and 158 meters long, on the Sunkoshi, water will be discharged through a tunnel into the Marin Khola in Kusumtar, Kamalamai Municipality-2, Sindhuli. 31.07 MW of electricity will be generated from there.
The aim is to then send the water to Bara, Rautahat, Sarlahi, Mahottari and Dhanusha in the Terai and provide irrigation facilities to an area of 122,000 hectares. The project has stated that construction has been started to provide irrigation facilities in these districts for twelve months. Currently, the water problem in these districts of Madhesh is increasing. However, if the project is completed on time, the fields of the Terai will become green, production will increase. Barren and rain-fed lands will be irrigated. Farmers who cultivate vegetables commercially will increase.
The delay in completing the work to be done on the Sunkoshi River, including the dam, has affected the entire project. The overall project was started in the fiscal year 2073/74. However, the tunnel work in the project has been completed, but the dam construction work has not been completed yet. The 13.3-kilometer tunnel was sunk on 26 Baisakh 2081.
The tunnel is in preparation for operation as the finishing work has also been completed. But it will not be operational until the dam is built and water is released. The contract for the tunnel construction has been awarded to Chinese company China Overseas Engineering (COVE). The project has said that the work has been expedited as the tunnel was dug using a tunnel boring machine (TBM). The overall construction cost of the project is Rs 49.42 billion and the construction period is set for 2085/86.
So far, the construction progress of the overall project is 36.83 percent. Rs 16.50 billion 27 million has been spent on it. When will the dam construction work begin? 'The contract process will be completed by Asoj and the work will begin from Kartik,' said Ashokraj Gautam, Senior Divisional Engineer of the Sunkoshi-Marine Diversion Multipurpose Project. Its construction period will be four years and four months. The last date to participate in the contract process is 23 Asad.
‘The progress of the work done initially is not much, probably only about 5 percent,’ he said, ‘The newly selected company will have to work from the beginning. The company that took the contract has done only a little work before.’ Gautam said that the advance payment has been taken from the company that broke the contract and the construction contractor has gone to arbitration, so the process of recovering the performance security is in progress. Although the farmers of Madhesh are waiting for the project to be completed, the construction has not been able to gain momentum.
Mitra Baral, Director General of the Department of Water Resources and Irrigation, said that the work will be done in a way that does not increase the initial cost estimate much in the new contract. ‘The contract has been broken after there was no work,’ he said, ‘There has been some delay in the work to be done in Sunkoshi. We have moved forward to complete the entire project in the fiscal year 2087/88.’
